The Flower Reader (29 page)

“And this dagger—the falcon’s head and the wings—it is their sign?”

“Whispers say it is. Rinette, there are very few people in Scotland who could pay to hire an
Escadron Volant
assassin. The queen herself has a virtually empty treasury, and uses her income from her properties in France for many of her expenses.”

“So it is one of the nobility, or a foreigner.”

“Yes, I think so. Elizabeth Tudor’s spymaster, Walsingham—he has the sort of connections that would be necessary. The English queen can be miserly, but consider what she would gain by getting the casket for herself. She would thwart Catherine de Médicis
personally. She would checkmate any attempt by the Huguenots to coerce the French queen into peace. At the same time she would increase her power over Scotland—with all the secrets of our noblemen, she will call the tune and they will dance. Queen Mary will become nothing more than a figurehead.”

“So you think it is the English?”

“There is just as much reason to believe it might be the French. The
Escadron
began, at least, under Queen Catherine’s aegis. As for the Huguenots, Coligny and Condé together could likely assemble the
Escadron
’s price.”

He stopped. After a moment I said, “And the Guises?”

He picked up the linen towel with its sketch and threw it into the fireplace. The fire blazed up brightly, and the towel was gone. I would have to give Mistress Finella a copper penny to buy more towels. “Better not to leave this where it might be seen,” he said. “Yes, the Guises are another possibility.”

“And the Scots? I think I would suspect Lady Margaret Erskine, first of all.”

He smiled. “If Lady Margaret were thirty years younger, she might have been
Escadron
herself. But yes, she has access to Moray’s resources, and her son’s as well.”

“What about Moray himself?”

“Also a possibility.”

“So what do we do next?” I said.

“You will not like my advice, Rinette.”

“You think I should give up. You think I will never find an assassin who is a member of this…this
Escadron Volant
.”

“You never will. He will not use that dagger again unless he is paid to perform another assassination, so your ruby will not help you. That is part of their ritual, their mystery—the falcon daggers are used only when they kill.”

“Do you think it is Blaise Laurentin?”

“Possibly. What about Chastelard? You said you had something to tell me about him, as well.”

“You suspect Chastelard? He was only a poet.”

Nico smiled. “He represented himself as a poet. He was a grandson of the Chevalier de Bayard; did you know that? The knight
sans peur et sans reproche
. There is more than poetry in his blood, and he could well have been secretly a member of the
Escadron Volant
himself.”

“Laurentin said that his employer and Chastelard’s employer were enemies, but that he and Chastelard personally were friends. Possibly more than friends—I suspect they may have been lovers.”

“
Sainte-grâce
, Rinette. When did Laurentin tell you this?”

“The night before Chastelard was executed.”

“I think you had best tell me the whole story.”

I picked up a towel from the top of the stack and unfolded it. I needed something to do with my hands. “There is not much to tell. Chastelard was found in the queen’s bedchamber, not once but twice. He was using his supposed passion for the queen as a pretense—what he truly wanted was the casket.”

I folded the towel again, with the edges perfectly aligned, and picked up another one.

“And that means he wanted you,” Nico said. “No wonder the queen is so furious with you—she thought he was mad with love for her, and he wanted you instead.”

“Yes. Nico, he told me he knew who killed Alexander.”

“Perhaps he did. If he was
Escadron Volant
, and the assassin was also, they would have known each other, however much they might have been in the service of bitter enemies.”

I folded the second towel and put it down. Then I stood up and walked back and forth in the little room. All this was so new. It changed everything. It made me edgy, restless.

“Do you think I am in danger?” I said at last.

“Not in the way you are thinking. An assassin will not slip up behind you in the darkness and slit your throat. But you could be abducted, forced to give up the casket. I am glad your little girl is safe at Granmuir, because your hand could be forced by a threat to someone you love.”

“Holy Saint Ninian.”

He caught my hand as I walked close to the table. “Rinette,” he said.

I stopped and looked at him.

“I must go back. The queen has been beside herself for the past few days. The archduke has decided to angle for the queen of England instead of our queen, so that opportunity is gone. Maitland is in London with instructions for secret negotiations with the Spanish ambassador there, and time is running out for the Spanish match to be made. Last year the Spanish prince fell down a flight of stairs, it is rumored, and cracked his head open. He has been more and more difficult ever since, and King Philip may decide he is not fit for marriage at all.”

“A fine husband for our queen.”

He smiled wryly. “She wants the crown of Spain, and the husband who comes with it is of no importance. That is another thing, Rinette.”

“That husbands are of no importance?”

“No, of course not. The queen’s determination to make the Spanish marriage. She has been talking endlessly about the
quatre maris
prophecies. She takes Monsieur de Nostredame very seriously, and she believes the prophecies will predict her future with each of the possible husbands she might marry. She has a new plan of some kind to force you to give them up.”

“If she tries to force me, I will never tell her. Never. She knows me well enough to know that.”

“At least take care when you are around her.”

“I will.”

He ran his thumb lightly over my knuckles and then let go of my hand. “You would be safest if you would give her the casket now, with no conditions.”

I drew back. “Is that you speaking, Nico, or your mysterious vow?”

He stood up. “It is both,” he said.
“Que Dieu te bénisse et te garde, ma mie.”

When he spoke the French words I once again experienced the disconcerting sense that he had once said something to me in French and I had forgotten it. I grasped at it—I almost had it. It was connected somehow with his vow.
You are burning up with fever,
he had said.
You will not remember this
. And then—

But the rest was gone.

“I have sweetened Master Knox’s temper considerably; do you not agree, brother?” the queen said. She was alight with self-satisfaction, and did a dance step all by herself in the center of the great hall of Lochleven Castle. “We had quite an excellent debate yesterday, and today at Kinross I begged for his help in settling the scandal between Argyll and Jean. Oh, how prettily I begged! And I gave him a watch in an eight-sided crystal—he may preach against vanity but he took the gift quickly enough.”

“I doubt much of anything will sweeten Knox permanently,” Moray said. He cut a candied apricot into four pieces with his royal dagger and ate one of the quarters. “But you argued well, sister, and showed marvelous self-control.”

As the queen danced down the hall, delighted with her own cleverness, I knelt by the hearth like a kitchen maid grating sugar to mix with cinnamon, galingale, and grains of paradise in the wine I was mulling. We had been at Lochleven for a week, guests of Sir William Douglas and his wife, Lady Agnes Leslie—she was the Earl of Rothes’s sister and so a distant cousin of my own. Sir William was
Lady Margaret Erskine’s son, by her long-dead husband, Sir Robert Douglas; this made him a half brother of Moray’s.

In addition to her audience with Master Knox, the queen had sung and danced and feasted every night, and hawked on the mainland every day—the weather could not have been more perfect for April, crisp and sunny, with the waters of Loch Leven reflecting cloudless blue skies. The shallows along the shore were spangled with coltsfoot and celandine, daisies and primroses, blue marsh violets and masses of windflowers.

Moray was back in favor just as suddenly as he had fallen; Sir John Gordon’s death had been forgiven and forgotten. Nico de Clerac, however, was highest in favor of them all; Moray, Rothes, and the rest of the queen’s council were said to be disliking him more and more for his influence and his foreignness.

In addition to Moray and Nico, Rothes was there in the great hall with us, seconded by his brutal kinsman Rannoch Hamilton; I avoided the man’s devouring black gaze and wondered what he was doing here, at the queen’s lighthearted gathering. Mary Fleming and Lady Agnes attended the queen. I was still in deep disgrace, but as Jennet said, the queen was changeable as the moon, and who knew what tomorrow might bring? So I clung grimly to my place and my determination to solve the mystery of Alexander’s murder. It might be more difficult to find an assassin of the
Escadron Volant
brotherhood, but I refused to believe it was impossible.

“One thing you could certainly do to encourage Master Knox’s favor,” said Lady Margaret when the queen had danced back to where the rest of them were sitting, “is cleanse your household of witchcraft. He specifically said you have witches in your household.”

“I did not pay attention to that part,” the queen said. “I have no witches.”

“There is Lady Atholl, who is said to practice sorcery.”

“Do not be ridiculous. She is Flaminia’s sister.” She gave Mary Fleming a kiss on the cheek and sat down beside her.

“Lady Reres.”

“She is Beaton’s aunt, and far too fat to be a witch.”

“And then…” Lady Margaret turned her head and looked straight at me. Malice crackled almost visibly in the air between us, and I felt myself pinned to the fireplace like a butterfly, with the sugar grater in my hand. “There is Mistress Rinette, here in this very room, who keeps a little hound as a familiar and reads the future in flowers.”

They all turned and looked at me, the queen and Moray and Nicolas de Clerac, Rothes and Rannoch Hamilton, Lady Agnes and Mary Fleming. I felt myself blushing hot as the fire behind me.

There was a strange expression on the queen’s face. It was as if she were thinking,
Now. This is perfect. Now is the time to spring the trap
.

What trap?

Nico’s voice, at the bakeshop:
She has a new plan of some kind to force you to give them up, so take care when you are around her.

“Seilie is not a familiar,” I said. My voice shook. “He is a pet, nothing more.”

Lady Margaret smiled. I could see she had expected me to jump to defend my little dog even before defending myself. “There. You do not deny that you use floromancy.”

“It is an amusement, my lady, that is all,” said Nicolas de Clerac in a lazy voice. “
La floromancie
, it is no more witchcraft than casting a horoscope.”

“Astrology is a science,” Moray said. “Sister, my lady mother is right. Mistress Rinette must be made to give up her flower-reading, or be sent away.”

Sent away?

Seilie, who had heard me say his name, had come to sit beside me. He leaned against me and pushed his head under my arm. He was trembling. Or was it I who was trembling?

“I will not send her away,” the queen said. “Not even for Master Knox. She has not yet given me my mother’s silver letter casket, which she promised to do. When she gives it to me, with the
quatre maris
prophecies of Monsieur de Nostredame, she may go off to her sea-rock and read her flowers every day if she likes.”

That was so outrageously unfair that it jarred me out of my shock. “I was not the only one who made a promise, madame,” I said. “You swore you would find my husband’s murderer and exercise your fullest royal justice upon him, and you have not done so.”

“I told you at the time I could make no promises.” The queen’s high spirits had evaporated; she stalked back to her own chair and seated herself under her cloth of estate. “It has been almost two years since your husband was killed, Marianette, and whoever the killer was, he will never be captured now.”

“I agree, sister,” said the Earl of Moray. “I believe it is time for Mistress Rinette to give up her search for her husband’s murderer, surrender the casket, and go, particularly as her presence here adds fuel to Master Knox’s flames.”

“I will not give it up,” I said. I could feel panic rising up in my throat. How had this come to such an ultimatum so suddenly? I still had the sugar-grater in my hand, and the wine was still simmering gently over the fire, half-sweetened. “I will not go until my husband’s murderer pays for his crime.”

Nicolas de Clerac stepped over to the queen’s chair and knelt on one knee, leaning toward her but careful not to touch her; she was the queen, after all, and no one touched her but by her direct invitation. She smiled at him and tilted her head in her favorite coquettish way, then reached out and placed her hand on his arm. Her long slender fingers were like white ribbons against the dark green velvet of his doublet sleeve.